Consumers are inundated each day with new products and brands, making it increasingly difficult for them to differentiate one business from another.

Therefore, to stand out, you must figure out how to distinguish yourself. One way to do this is by focusing on ways to provide customers a unique experience, one which has been tailored to appeal to their exact needs and wants.

Personalization creates the type of meaningful, memorable customer experience that drives conversion. Consider the following statistics:

73% of consumers prefer to do business with brands that use personal information to make their shopping experiences more relevant.

In-house marketers who personalize their web experiences and are able to quantify the improvement see an average 19% uplift in sales.

This evidence suggests that businesses which deliver a one-size-fits-all customer experience lack the ability to positively influence customers who prefer – even expect – a relevant, personalized experience. Understanding what your customers want and need is invaluable for creating that experience.

Three Ways to Maximize Customer Data

Customer data will make it easier to deliver what they are looking for. Here’s how:

1/ Predict what your customers want

Customer knowledge makes it easier for your business to adopt a customer-focused model, a model which, incidentally, has proven to be 60% more profitable. And one of the most important aspects of a customer-focused business model is the ability to predict what your customers will want so as to maintain their satisfaction and loyalty.

The more you know about your customers and their needs, the easier it is to identify opportunities to sell them new products and target them with appropriate offers. With the right customer data, you can predict what, how often, and when they are most likely to buy from you.

2/ Improve your customer service

For many businesses, customer service is centered on fixing a problem. But, working with customer data, you can focus on proactively monitoring your customer interactions and fixing small issues before they become big problems.

Taking preventive steps to identify and fix what could become a pain point in your customer journey will enable you to increase efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, and build better brand perception. For example, your customers will, no doubt, feel frustrated if they have to repeat the same basic facts or questions, as has been the case for 55% of consumers according to a recent survey. Or if they have to expend a moderate-to-high amount of energy to resolve a problem, a reality for 59% of respondents according to the same survey.

But if you can avoid these kinds of problems altogether, your customers will be more likely to stick around. Leveraging date to improve their relationship with you is one way to ensure you are creating an experience which doesn’t require your customers to jump through hoops, wait, or feel unappreciated.

3/ Create a single view of your customer

A single view of the customer provides a clear summary of your relationship to each customer. It includes essential personal and demographic information as well as a history of their transactions and most frequently used channels.

Without a centralized customer relationship management (CRM) system, your customer information will likely be spread across many data systems, making it difficult to track. Consequently, you will have a hard time understanding your customers, their behaviors, and their needs. However, according to one study, achieving a single view of customers could reduce your marketing costs by 40%, increase your productivity by 40%, and improve your customer retention by 39%.

Using data to build a single view of your customers will, undoubtedly, help you create a more positive relationship with your customers. You will better understand their actions, behaviors, and intentions, knowledge which should be at the heart of all your business’s strategies. In fact, 73% of businesses now see customer knowledge as crucial to improving customer service and retention levels.

No Question: You Need Customer Knowledge

A customer's continuing business is no longer guaranteed. Businesses which lack the ability to grasp – and proactively address – customers’ needs and values will suffer while those able to personalize the customer experience will thrive in an increasingly competitive market place.

There is no question about it: to be successful, you must have access to information that provides a clear vision of who your customers are and how you can best serve them. Gathering comprehensive customer data can be a challenge but it’s a necessary one that needs to be tackled sooner rather than later.